They tell her how Jesus is being nailed to it, sparing none of the agonizing details. Then she exclaims:
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E io comencio el corrotto; Figliolo, mio deporto, Figlio, chi mi t'à morto, Figlio mio delicato! Meglio averien fatto Che 'l cor m'avesser tratto, Che nella croce tratto Starci desciliato. |
Jesus now breaks silence, and comforts her, pointing out that she must live for His disciples, and naming John. He dies, and she continues the Corrotto[370]:
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Figlio, l'alma t'è uscita, Figlio de la smarrita, Figlio de la sparita, Figlio [mio] attossicato! Figlio bianco e vermiglio, Figlio senza simiglio, Figlio, a chi m'apiglio, Figlio, pur m'hai lassato! Figlio bianco e biondo, Figlio, volto jocondo, Figlio, perchè t'à el mondo, Figlio, cusì sprezato! Figlio dolce e piacente, Figlio de la dolente, Figlio, à te la gente Malamente trattato! Joanne, figlio novello, Morto è lo tuo fratello; Sentito aggio 'l coltello Che fo profetizzato, Che morto à figlio e mate, De dura morte afferrate; Trovârsi abbracciate Mate e figlio a un cruciato. |
Upon this note of anguish the poem closes. It is conducted throughout in dialogue, and is penetrated with dramatic energy. For Passion Music of a noble and yet flowing type, such as Pergolese might have composed, it is still admirably adapted.
Each strophe of Fra Jacopone's Canticles might be likened to a seed cast into the then fertile soil of the Franciscan Order, which bore fruit a thousand-fold in its own kind of spiritual poetry. The vast collection of hymns, published by Tresatti in the seventeenth century, bears the name of Jacopone, and incorporates his genuine compositions.[371] But we must regard the main body of the work as rather belonging to Jacopone's school than to the master. Taken collectively, these poems bear upon their face the stamp of considerable age, and there is no reason to suppose that their editor doubted of their authenticity. A critical reader of the present time, however, discerns innumerable evidences of collaboration, and detects expansion and dilution of more pregnant themes in the copious outpourings of this cloistral inspiration. What the Giotteschi are to Giotto, Tresatti's collection is to Salviano's imprint of Jacopone. It forms a complete manual of devotion, framed according to the spirit of S. Francis. In its pages we read the progress of the soul from a state of worldliness and vice, through moral virtue, into the outer court of religious conviction. Thence we pass to penitence and the profound terror of sin. Having traversed the region of purgatory upon earth, we are introduced to the theory of Divine Love, which is reasoned out and developed upon themes borrowed from each previous step gained by the spirit in its heavenward journey. Here ends the soul's novitiate; and we enter on a realm of ecstasy. The poet bathes in an illimitable ocean of intoxicating love, summons the images of sense and makes them adumbrate his rapture of devotion, reproducing in a myriad modes the Oriental metaphors of the soul's marriage to Christ suggested by the Canticle of Canticles. A final grade in this ascent to spiritual perfection is attained in the closing odes, which celebrate annihilation—the fusion of the mortal in immortal personality, the bliss of beatific vision, Nirvana realized on earth in ecstasy by man. At this final point sense swoons, the tongue stammers, language refuses to perform her office, the reason finds no place, the universe is whirled in spires of flame, we float in waves of metaphor, we drown in floods of contemplation, the whole is closed with an O Altitudo!
It is not possible to render scantiest justice to this extraordinary monument of the Franciscan fervor by any extracts or descriptions. Its full force can only be felt by prolonged and, if possible, continuous perusal. S. Catherine and S. Teresa attend us while we read; and when the book is finished, we feel, perhaps for the first time, the might, the majesty, the overmastering attraction of that sea of faith which swept all Europe in the thirteenth century. We understand how naufragar in questo mar fù dolce.
Though the task is ungrateful, it behooves the historian of popular Italian poetry to extract some specimens from this immense repertory of anonymous lyrics. Omitting the satires, which are composed upon the familiar monastic rubrics of vanity, human misery, the loathsomeness of the flesh, and contempt of the world, I will select one stanza upon Chastity from among the moral songs[372]:
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O Castità bel fiore, Che ti sostiene amore. O fior di Castitate, Odorifero giglio, Con gran soavitate, Sei di color vermiglio, Et a la Trinitate Tu ripresenti odore. |
Chastity in another place is thus described[373]:—